Oy!
or should I say Oyll?
What if you were the owner of….
a successful family company you had inherited from your great great (and even maybe one more great) grandparents? They were immigrants who dedicated their lives to creating and developing the business, your business now, which is known and respected worldwide.
What if the product or service you offer it through your company is something that everyone without exception has come to depend on in their every day lives, and by this time almost can’t really live without? Say, maybe soap or salt or a washing machine – -something many of us take for granted and in modern life can acquire or use.
Pretty comfortable and cushy spot for you to find yourself in,as the CEO of such an enterprise. It’s also easy to start sloughing off and skimping, trading quality for profit if you don’t remain especially aware of such a danger.
But
what if suddenly strangers landed smack in the middle of Main Street in your town?
What if they opened a brand new business—like yours only infinitely spectacularly better? What if they have discovered a process or device or product which not only competes with whatever your company has been providing, but renders your whole entire operation completely obsolete and totally unnecessary?
And what if you did not possess the resources or knowledge even to copy their equipment or process or product, and there was absolutely no longer any need for your company to exist – – after the years of toil and effort put in by your parents, their parents and so on?
What ever would become of you and all the generations of dedication, not to mention your own entire livelihood and ability to survive and thrive?
Quite demoralizing I should certainly think.
And what if the newcomers had no interest in including you in their new operation and had some other agenda that included your exclusion altogether?
What a rough and potentially bloody battle for control could ensue.
You might try to jazz up your whole plan, knowing full well that if you didn’t convert to their system somehow or offer a competitive product or service, you and your whole life would be done for. Period.
Stalling madly for time until you could catch up might work, provided you have the resources and expertise to do so. In fact maybe some sort of agreement with the new kids on the block might be available and possible, depending on whether or not you could get them to share their new product or service and was a deal you wouldn’t have to sell your soul for . return.What a moral dilemma if you were asked to betray your fellow towns people in some way.Business survival vs morality
No playing right over yourhead
